The article argues that Jómsvíkinga saga, despite its mixed modality, should be included in Old Norse historiography. A comparison with kings’ sagas and legendary sagas — in this case Yngvars saga víðfǫrla — shows how these modes were used in Jómsvíkinga saga. The saga is often grouped with Orkneyinga saga and Færeyinga saga, which were also written around the year 1200; all deal in some way with the relationship between kings and aristocrats. The reason for this may be found in contemporary events: The Scandinavian kings were strengthening their position, while the aristocracy was trying to maintain its influence. Therefore, the sagas have also been called political sagas. The oldest extant versions of Jómsvíkinga saga contain the first part of the saga, which deals with the history of the Danish Kings; this shows that the saga was intended to be perceived as history. However, a later version (AM 510 4to) omits this part, which suggests that the historicity of the saga had eroded. The fact that Jómsvíkinga saga was incorporated into manuscripts containing legendary sagas also shows that the saga may have been valued for its entertaining plot and not because of its connections to real events and historical characters.

The article comprises an introduction to and an edition and translation of an Old Swedish sermon fragment found in the Hannaas Collection at the Ethno-Folkloristic Archive, University of Bergen, Norway (Hannaas 66). This previously unpublished paper fragment is one of the missing parts of the Old Swedish Homily Book (known as Svensk järteckens postilla), dating from the second half of the fifteenth century and now housed at the Royal Library in Stockholm, Sweden (Cod. Holm. A 111). The text in Hannaas 66 comprises a sermon for the 8th Sunday after Trinity based on Matthew 7. 15–16 and includes a miracle exemplum that illustrates the importance of acting justly and following the will of God.

The Danish National Archives in Copenhagen houses several thousand manuscript fragments, the remains of numerous works that were cut up and used in the bindings of later books. The majority of these fragments are written in Latin, Middle Low German, or Danish, although a few in Old Swedish also survive. Five of these Old Swedish fragments are published and discussed in this article. They contain parts of two of St Birgitta’s Revelations (Liber Caelestis and Revelationes Extravagantes) and of St Bernard’s A Rule of Good Life (Ad sororem modus bene vivendi in christianam religionem). The Birgittine texts are from an early stage of the retranslation process when compared to other extant versions and include several unique wordings that demonstrate the specific use of the original manuscript in a monastic environment. The Bernard fragments are one of just two extant versions and may predate the version in Stockholm, Royal Library, A 9; as such, they are an important witness to the propagation of the saint’s writings in Sweden.

The article examines the portrayal of Jews in medieval texts written in Danish before 1515. It begins by describing the theological basis for and creation of a ‘fantasy Jew’. The perception of Jews was fundamentally shaped by the idea that they had tortured and killed the Christian messiah. Devotional texts, sermons and Passion stories which describe the Jews as Christ killers are therefore discussed in detail, and the image of the deicide Jew in vernacular texts is shown to be malleable and changing. The image of the violent Jew who tortured and killed Jesus was used to arouse empathy among readers and to chastise them for being too like the Jews by behaving sinfully. Other Jewish ‘types’ that occur in the material are also investigated: effeminate, Satanic and usurious Jews as well as comparisons with animals. The preliminary results of an investigation into the type of language that was used to shape the image of Jews show that certain ‘negative’ words were used disproportionately more frequently in descriptions of Jews than of non-Jews. This suggests a powerful association between such words and the perception of Jews — a connection that was supported and further enhanced through religious art and theatre. The article concludes by noting what is missing in the extant material and what this might tell us about medieval Danish attitudes towards Jews.

The image of the Jews as the killers of Jesus has its origins in the Gospels where Jews are portrayed as responsible – directly or indirectly – for the Crucifixion. The enduring myth of the Christ-killer has evolved over nearly two millennia to find a variety of expressions in religion, politics, philosophy, literature and drama. In this article, I examine how Jews are portrayed as murderers in late medieval descriptions of the Passion found in Old Danish sermons and devotional literature. The influence of the saints Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas and Birgitta of Sweden is examined as also is the question of Jewish culpability in each of the texts and what this would have meant to the audience and readers. The Christkiller motif is shown to be an effective and flexible tool for the Church in marking the boundaries of vita christiana and in teaching empathy and spirituality to its members.

The landmark book series Slott och herresaten i Sverige (transl. Castles and Manor Houses in Sweden), published in 1966-1971 by Allhems forlag, is still today considered the most important art historical reference work on Swedish manor buildings and country houses. The 18 volumes seem to present a near complete picture of the nation's rich heritage of manor buildings, combining the comprehensive and topographically organized guide book with the thoroughness of the architectural monograph. This paper will address the more problematic aspects of the book series, its critical role in the writing of a Swedish architectural history and in shaping a national country house narrative. While each volume provides an authoritative and concise overview of the history, ownership and stylistic development of the most significant manor buildings in the province - their architecture, interiors, gardens and collections - the presentation with its general descriptions, formal analysis and neutral tone omits a more in-depth analysis of these complex environments as well as underlying social, political and economic aspects. The descriptions have, in a sense, been working against the depth of historical understanding and the identification of more complex networks. As a consequence, the Swedish manor house is presented as a continuous and self-contained "treasure house", with the critical perspectives and broader European context very seldom present in the characterizations.

Discussion of the ritual known as the ‘blood-eagle’ in Old Norse religion has a long tradition behind it. In the disciplines of philology and literary history there has been much scepticism as to whether such a ritual ever actually existed. Orkneyinga saga, ch. 8, describes the carving of a blood-eagle on the back of an enemy, presenting this as a sacrifice to Óðinn following the celebrant’s victory in battle. The description has parallels in other sources, including a skaldic verse by Sigvatr Þórðarson, but the question of their authenticity is problematic. The Orkneyinga saga episode shows several important similarities to other accounts of human sacrifices in Old Norse sources. The overall picture seems to stengthen the supposition that the ritual known as the blood-eagle was a genuine Old Norse religious practice, albeit an exceptional one, and was perhaps bound up with the overthrowing of a ruling personage.

The Sistani dialect, though a dialect of Persian, displays its own manifestations of morpho-syntactic categorieson the verb form. The purpose of this article is to investigate the verb system of the Sistani dialectas spoken in Sistan based on linguistic fieldwork carried out in the village Sekuhe (locally known as Sakvâ)and provide a synchronic description of its verb structure and the realization of verbal morpho-syntacticcategories including agreement, tense, aspect, mood, and voice. The oral texts used as linguistic data,which compose the corpus for describing and analysing the given morpho-syntactic categories for verbsin the Sistani dialect, were extracted from the free speech of 10 males and 10 females between the ages of7 and 85 with different social backgrounds living in Sekuhe. The findings of the present study show thatthe Sistani dialect employs what are basically its own morpho-syntactic elements to manifest agreement,tense, aspect, and voice in its verb system.

28.

Ah-King, Malin

et al.

Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Centre for Gender Research.

In this study we tested the fruitfulness of advanced bibliometric methods for mapping subdomains in philosophy. The development of the number of publications on free will and sorites, the two subdomains treated in the study, over time was studied. We applied the cocitation approach to map the most cited publications, authors and journals, and we mapped frequently occurring terms, using a term co-occurrence approach. Both subdomains show a strong increase of publications in Web of Science. When we decomposed the publications by faculty, we could see an increase of free will publications also in social sciences, medicine and natural sciences. The multidisciplinary character of free will research was reflected in the cocitation analysis and in the term co-occurrence analysis: we found clusters/groups of cocited publications, authors and journals, and of co-occurring terms, representing philosophy as well as non-philosophical fields, such as neuroscience and physics. The corresponding analyses of sorites publications displayed a structure consisting of research themes rather than fields. All in all, both philosophers involved in this study acknowledge the validity of the various networks presented. Bibliometric mapping appears to provide an interesting tool for describing the cognitive orientation of a research field, not only in the natural and life sciences but also in philosophy, which this study shows.